by Roberta Scorranese – [email protected]
The actor and his wife Sandra Bonzi celebrate thirty years of love. And she debuts in fiction with a detective story. A combination of irony, shared passions and a courtship that is revealed here for the first time
Claudio Bisio, his wife Sandra Bonzi wrote a thriller with wagons full of bloody bodies, what do you think?
BISIO: «When I read that, I asked myself: who did I really marry? A serial killer?”
BONZI: “Scared, huh?”
Bonzi’s novel Nine and a Half Days (released April 28 for Garzanti) is a dark comedy in which journalist Elena tries to keep together not only the body parts, but also a rapidly changing job and a family threatened by time and time the erosion of habit. And Sandra, writer and journalist, makes her debut in fiction in the days in which she celebrates thirty years of love with Claudio: two children (Alice and Federico), an indestructible complicity, many common passions. We meet remotely, in three different video windows: Bonzi stayed in Milan, Bisio is in Tuscany for work.
Sandra, how did the book come about?
BONZI: «Thanks Claudio. I had written it as a cinematic treatment, I was afraid to go further, but then he convinced me to make a real novel out of it, written in the third person ».
BISIO: «In the house she is the reader. Saying he made me discover Daniel Pennac years ago ».
But Sandra’s opinion is also decisive for her, Claudio.
BISIO: «As soon as I get a script, I pass it on to my wife. She is attentive, she knows how to evaluate a job. Thanks to Sandra, I said an important no. Sometimes I have disobeyed, yes».
BONZI: «But I got my curiosity from him. Claudio reads and is interested in everything. I less. I tend to switch off about certain things, for example I don’t know much about music”.
BISIO: “Football too. Is it possible to get theater tickets on the nights Milan is playing?
BONZI: “But stop it, if I left, you would get in with the first one who came by.”
BISIO: «No, be careful. Sandra will never leave me, I’m sure of it, but if she did, absurdly, I’ll say something here that I want to tell all Corriere readers: I wouldn’t survive. I would feel completely lost. They have certain orders that keep me alive ».
How did you meet?
BISIO: «That was in 1992 in Boario at a film festival. I took her to Milan and discovered that she lived a double life: by day she was a rigorous and impeccable Pierre, the best I had ever met; but at night it transformed: it enlivened a room with a group of friends, thanks to song and dance. Do you think they called themselves “The Finished Porridge”? Then, well, the night he threw me in the car, he captured me forever.
BONZI: «He convinced me with a gesture that I would like to share here for the first time. So, “convicts” Gino and Michele that we met in Boario. That same evening, at the table, he made a joke that I didn’t like, and then I closed like a hedgehog. He noticed and tried several times to ask me what happened. I’m changing: I came from Bolzano, had a strict education, knew how to keep my distance. Then it happened that Claudio suddenly knelt at my feet in front of everyone and said: “If you don’t talk to me, I won’t leave here” ».
Miserable.
BONZI: «I put many common passions into the novel, the ones with which we have built our bond. Read, first of all, because we both love thrillers, from Manzini to Biondillo. But then also the irony, with the characters of the terrible old ladies trying to solve the mystery in which Elena Donati is involved, starting with Margherita, the mother of the protagonist ».
BISIO: “When I think about it, Sandra’s mother, my mother-in-law, has the same vitality!”
BONZI: «That’s right, my mother is eighty years old, does water aerobics, pottery courses, paints. But with this book – and with the many female characters who are no longer young – I also tried to demand the right to a certain age. For it seems that once women are past the age limit, they cease to exist, at least in the most common narrative of our time.
BISIO: «But there are also many actresses who are no longer girls, but extraordinarily good and valued, popular. Angela Finocchiaro, for example. Or Lella Costa. This is Sandra, which actress would you like to play as Elena if the thriller is made into a movie?”
BONZI: «Maybe Angela Finocchiaro, but I would also like to have Lella Costa. Claudio and I often go to the theater, but also to exhibitions, especially on Thursday evenings when the museums are open late. And it’s not true that I only get tickets when Milan is there.”
Anyway, Bisio, reading the book makes you think that Sandra Bonzi is very funny. Maybe more than her!
BISIO: «Well, it’s time to cancel my Corriere della Sera subscription! I’m joking, obviously.”
BONZI: «I make people laugh when I write, in life I’m quite clumsy, maybe a little dramatized. He is a sweetheart, not to point out here ».
BISIO: «Sandra makes me laugh, but unbeknownst to her: she feels heavy, just involved in the family, a bit melodramatic, but it’s not like that. It’s ironic, unpredictable. By the way honey, where are you right now?”
BONZI: “In my studio at our house, you can see it on the video, where should it be?”
BISIO: “Ah no, this background is not our home, you are hiding something from me, you know that I am jealous and that without you I am nothing, come on, come on”.
April 24, 2022 (Modification April 24, 2022 | 07:13)
© REPRODUCTION RESERVED